Article by Amanda Jasi
ICHEME has announced that it is recognising more than 30 chemical engineers with prizes and medals for their exceptional contributions to the profession within research and academia.
The Medals and Prizes Committee has released a list of the recipients, who will be presented with their awards during virtual webinars throughout the year.
John Grace, a Chartered Member of IChemE and Professor Emeritus at the University of British Colombia (UBC), Canada, will receive the Geldart Medal, for his significant contribution to research in particle technology. Grace is a pioneering researcher in fluidisation whose work on circulating fluidised beds has been critical to the development and scaleup of fluidised bed reactors for industrial applications, including gasification and clean energy production.
A batch of pills will be on its way into space where they will be placed on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) to test how they withstand the full effects of zero gravity, extreme temperatures, and some of the highest levels of radiation found beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.
“One day, pills might have to withstand being taken from Earth to Mars and back again to help keep astronauts healthy, so we need to know how they will be affected by one of the harshest environments known: space,” says Prof. Volker Hessel. He is the research director of the Andy Thomas Centre for Space Resources, and professor in the School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials at the University of Adelaide.
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A new research consortium led by UNSW Sydney in partnership with the NSW Office of the Chief Scientist & Engineer (OCSE) will explore the use of excess renewable energy to power various infrastructural sectors in New South Wales.
The researchers will study the potential to grow a new industry that will use cheap excess renewable energy to make fuel, chemicals and feedstocks to power a range of infrastructure in the State. Led by Scientia Professor Rose Amal from the School of Chemical Engineering, the team will undertake a roadmap exercise, NSW Power-to-X (P2X) Industry Feasibility Study, which will assess and develop opportunities for decarbonisation and growing local manufacturing capabilities. The work will be carried out with the support of the OCSE.
Australian researchers develop new hybrid plasma electrocatalytic process to produce green ammonia
Chemical engineers at UNSW Sydney and University of Sydney have developed a hybrid plasma electrocatalytic process for the production of sustainable (“green”) ammonia. The method makes green ammonia from air, water and renewable electricity and does not require the high temperatures, high pressure and huge infrastructure currently needed to produce this essential compound.
Traditional production of ammonia via the Haber-Bosch process consumes about 2% of the world’s energy and accounts for 1% of the industrial world’s carbon dioxide emissions.
The new production method demonstrated in a laboratory-based proof of concept also has the potential to play a role in the global transition towards a hydrogen economy, in which ammonia is seen as a possible solution to the problem of storing and transporting hydrogen energy.